Enantiomeric Excess

Notes

Ink and marker on acid free drawing paper, 11×14 inches

Enantiomeric excess is a concept from chemistry. Enantiomers refer specifically to a type of isomerism where the two molecules are identical in every way, except that they’re mirror images of one another. The ability to possess a mirror image is a property called “chirality”. The 3-dimensional shape of your hand is chiral. Your left and right hands are, in a sense, enantiomers of one another. Enantiomeric excess sets up the idea of chirality using a spiral, which is a chiral object in 2-dimensions. Very fine line details in black ink also represent chiral objects, but in both handedness or both enantiomers. There is a preponderance of one type of enantiomer. If you know a chemist, a biochemist, or someone who works in pharmaceuticals, :“Enantiomeric Excess”, the drawing, can function as a talking point as well as art. In chiral separations, synthesis, and analysis, a chiral environment (the marker spiral) is used to sense and sort chiral molecular objects (the black ink drawings) to create a large excess of one enantiomer.

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About The Nerdly Painter, Dr. Regina Valluzzi

Dr. Regina Valluzzi has an extensive scientific background in nanotechnology and biophysics. She explores abstract scientific concepts through complex
geometric paintings. Many of the subjects of her abstract drawings and paintings are taken from topics in Physics research. Soft Matter Physics and Biological Physics ideas are often seen, arising from Dr. Valluzzi's main area of research for many years. In addition to motifs and ideas drawn directly from molecular biology, biophysics, and nearby fields, her art often incorporates aspects of self-similarity, and elements from math and physics topics that have long held a fascination for her.

Her scientific accomplishments include over thirty articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, several patents, an encyclopedia chapter as a subject matter expert, and invited talks in the US, Europe, and Japan. She has been a scientist in the chemical industry, a green chemistry researcher, a research professor in the engineering school at Tufts, a start-up founder engaged in technology commercialization, a start-up and commercialization consultant, and a science-themed artist.

Dr. Valluzzi has always held a strong interest in the visual arts and in visual information, allowing visual arts ideas to permeate her technical work and vice versa. She was educated in Materials Science at MIT, obtaining a second B.S. degree in music with a minor in visual studies. During her PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst she completed a thesis requiring advanced electron microscopy, image analysis, and theoretical data modeling. These experiences provided the visual insights and experiences that inform much of her work as an artist.